Someone had to ask it sooner or later- What is your opinion on this year's State of the Union and the Republican response?

The State of the Union speech was powerful and optimistic. The response started as if it might be good, but then launched into the Big Lie that Obama inherited a bad economy and made it worse. The rest of it was full of gloom and doom unless you elect Republicans and let them continue on with all the policies that got us as messed up as we are.

Nice speech. He’s given
a lot of nice speeches.

Sadly, I couldn’t watch the Republican Response. I started to, but had to switch because it became depressing within three or four sentences. Then I tried to watch the talking heads on PBS Newshour, but I was literally interrupted there, so didn’t catch much of their analysis.

What I did catch of CBS analysis before the RR, I wasn’t impressed with, all of it seemed to be oh-he’s-just-setting-up-for-his-campaign blah-blah-blah. Nothing new or insightful. Such a disappointment.

I was kind of inspired by his likening how Congress should be to how Seal Team 6 had to be. But that came at the end, so that would stick in my memory longer. I know he didn’t say much different from what he’s been saying, it just seemed more impressive given the setting.

I think Congress was a lot better behaved than last year’s SOTU, but I don’t think the CBS camera jockeys went looking for any disgruntled expressions, though they did catch McCain looking pained, but that could be attributed to problems with his body’s aging rather than what he was hearing. I know I found it hard to sit still with my sore hip joint.

I don’t know why we had it on CBS, that’s where the channel was when it came on. I wondered if the other networks caught anything different on peoples’ faces.

Think my takeaway will be “Congress is, yet again, no Seal Team 6”. I’m sure that will be a usable theme the rest of this year.

Pretty good shit. Couple of low points but hard to disagree with the guy.
Didn’t see the after-spin yet. [Holds nose & clicks link]
But, hey one thing, I am a proud high school drop out… You know cause I’m going for my PhD and high school would have done kilt me. “OBAMA: We also know that when students aren’t allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.” Meh.

My favorite part was the spilled milk joke. How everyone stayed quiet for a few seconds, then realized “oh, right, my Commander in Chief just make a joke, I should laugh” and then the forced laughter that then becomes sorta genuine out of the awkwardness. And my absolute favorite part, Michelle’s face at the whole thing. That face that says, “yep, this is my husband…”

I liked this bit

@flutherother, it was so wonderful to see her. She looks amazing. She is a miracle of modern medicine.

I loved the President;s speech, I finished watching it on such a high that I did not want to watch the Republican rebuttal, because all I have been getting is a steady diet of Republican thoughts and beliefs in the day-to-day of the election.

It should have been a good SOTU speech. He has used the same material for the last three years. Here

Seems to me it is all talk no action so far.

@WestRiverrat you do realize that it’s congress that has to write the laws for the president to sign right? See also: What the fuck has Obama done so far?

They were good ideas last year too, it’s a shame the Republican party is full of clowns who are intentionally sabotaging the political process simply to prove that government doesn’t work, so they can try to gain more power. It’s one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen.

@gorillapaws The Republican controlled House of Representatives passed several bills that Obama proposed, they are currently held up in the Democrat controlled Senate. Don’t blame it all on the Republicans when the Democrats are doing the exact same thing in the other wing of congress.

@WestRiverrat It sounded like you were blaming Obama. But now it’s the Democratic majority in the senate?

@gorillapaws there is enough blame for the Republicans, Democrats and President. To say it is just the Democrats or just the Republicans is a false argument.

I mean all I heard in 2008 was all Bush’s fault because the country had a $4.5 trillion dollar deficit under his administration in 8 years. But I hear nothing from the same people that decried Bush when this president has a 3 trillion dollar deficit in 3 years.

@WestRiverrat he started the war in Iraq, and then pulled resources from Afghanistan turning it into a clusterfuck stalemate. He proposed both rounds of the tax cuts that are greatly responsible for creating unprecedented levels of debt during a time of prosperity, and squandered the surplus he inherited instead of using some/all of it to pay down the existing debt. The man he choose as VP was the one who cast the tiebreaking midnight vote to ram through the 50Billion/year give away to big pharma, aka Medicare part D. That’s not even getting into all of the de-regulation that he passed (imagine how much worse things would be right now if they had privatized Social Security like they wanted to!).

I’m having a hard time understanding your argument. You’re saying that Obama wants to pass legislation but is being held up by his own party, and that situation is directly comprable to a president who passed a lot of bad legislation and wasn’t obstructed by his party? See how the two are very different scenarios?

As for the spending, think of it like this: The parents go out of town and leave some money for the kids to take care of things while they’re gone. The kids go nuts. They have a huge party break walls, ruin expensive things, not only squander the money they were given but run up the credit cards, cause the parents to loose their jobs, and disconnect all of the circuit breakers, smoke detectors and pressure regulators on the plumbing. Shit starts breaking down left and right, there’s a fire and tons of damage. To top it all off, they borrowed money from the mafia who will cause very bad things to happen if they don’t pay up.

Now the parents come home, they have no jobs and there is huge fucking mess to clean up. Do you blame the debt that the parents have to add to their credit card to repair their home, make ends-meet until they can get new jobs and stave off the mafia enforcers on the parents or the kids? Maybe it’s the parents’ fault for allowing the Republicans to run the country unchecked for so long in the first place, but you don’t get to drop the cleanup costs in the next administration’s column.

Well the jury is in. There had NEVER BEEN a State of the Union speech in US history that swayed public opinion polls so far so fast. Please bear with Ed’s lead in and look at the poll numbers he covers. In a CBS poll asked do you approve or disapprove of the plans the President laid out in the State of the Union Speech. 91% approved. 9% disapproved. There are a bunch of additional polls Ed Covers. It is beyond belief how much that speech moved the nation.

Perhaps that’s why folks like @WestRiverrat are tying themselves into pretzels trying to find some way to mock it. Their overlords, the corporate Lobbyists won’t be served by the ideas Obama expressed. Expect the attacks to come fast and furious. The very fabric of our society, absolute corporate control of US government, is in peril here.

And @WestRiverrat, since Republicans of late have used Big Lie politics, please name one bill that actually would help create jobs that was passed by the House RepugniCons (You deliberately misuse Democrat [sic] Senate so I reserve the same right) and is held up in the US Senate. Forget about the Paul Ryan budget, or any of the deregulation measures designed to take us right back to what blew up the economy under George W. Bush. Those are held up because they will not create jobs, they will kill millions of jobs again just as they did the last time RepugniCons tried them. Remember, the definition of insanity is constantly doing the same harmful action always expecting a new and better result

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/11/white-house-pushes-for-passage-job-bill-in-face-likely-senate-defeat/

@WestRiverrat Not even a nice try. Flunk. Go look up what filibuster means. The Republicans in the Senate blocked the bill with a filibuster.It says it in the first paragraph of the Fox “News” article you referenced.

Republicans have used the filibuster an unprecedented number of times since Obama was elected. They have tried to stop every single bill that might actually help get Americans back to work. Their intention was clear. Americans are too stupid to realize it’s us killing the economy. They will vote him out, and put us back in control. Then we can go back to Bush politics, only on steroids this time. Our wealthy masters will love us.

I did not watch it. I may listen to it in the next few days. Maybe.

I pay attention to what this president does, but not to what he says.